Ouch. “Love Hurts,” indeed.
Hollywood loves a comeback, but few have felt as genuinely moving as Key Huy Quan’s triumphant return to screen. Decades after “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” Quan delivered an Academy Award winning performance in 2023’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” reminding audiences why they fell in love with him in the first place.
Quan’s awards run two years ago was a whirlwind of heart-warming reunions, giddy appearances at all the major events and incredible stories about his career.
Naturally, after his Oscar win, Quan became one of Hollywood’s most sought-after names. Who wouldn’t want to spend more time with such an effortlessly charismatic star? He’s been keeping busy since, but Jonathan Eusebio’s “Love Hurts” offered something Quan had yet to experience: his first leading role.
Unfortunately, while Quan is more than ready for the spotlight, “Love Hurts” isn’t ready for him. Watching this film is like seeing your most exuberant friend trapped in an insufferable relationship — you know they deserve better, and you wish you could get them out.
In “Love Hurts,” Marvin Gable (Quan) is a relentlessly cheerful Milwaukee real estate agent with a dark past. Before settling into a life of baking cookies for open houses and dishing out life advice to his sarcastic assistant Ashley (Leo Tipton), Marvin served as a stone-cold killer for his gangster brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu).
His past comes knocking — quite literally — when his brother’s former lawyer Rose (Ariana DeBose, whose post-Oscar career choices have been questionable put it kindly) returns from the dead, leaving ominous Valentine’s Day cards in her wake. It’s one of many half-baked attempts to hammer in the film’s holiday theme. But beyond candy hearts and heart-shaped cookies, the film’s heart was broken from the very beginning, and so was mine.
Great Valentine’s Day films make you feel the love, whether through palpable chemistry, heartfelt storytelling or even just commitment to their own concept. “Love Hurts” has no such ambitions. In fact, it’s hard to tell what this film is even interested in at all.
Quan and DeBose are meant to be love interests, but you would hardly know it from watching them. They share so little screen time that their supposed connection feels more like a subplot than the driving force of the film. When they do interact, there’s not a spark in sight.
Even the action sequences — the film’s main draw — fall flat on their face. The lone highlight is an early fight where Marshawn Lynch and André Eriksen toss Quan into a fridge before launching him across the room. It’s the only time the film is able to capture a fraction of the kinetic energy Eusebio has previously choreographed in “John Wick” and other stunt heavy projects.
Unfortunately that creativity is absent from the rest of the film, where the final battles are hampered by an abundance of overbearing sound design and uninspired choreography turning the climactic fights into an endurance test. You’ll hear plenty of bone-snapping, but goodluck trying to spot an actual broken bone.
Limp, unfunny and devoid of any real spark, “Love Hurts” doesn’t just waste its leading man — it wastes your time. Save your Valentine’s Day because this one definitely hurts, but for all the wrong reasons.
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